Is it all that bad?

[Mark Keefer]

<p>With world population at approx. 6,981,153,710 people as of 12/14/2011 there is something bad happening to someone some place all the time.</p>

<p>With our advanced communication systems and hundred of news organization looking for it, and most every cellphone can catch photos and video from regular people that are there. It hits the internet and goes viral.</p>

<p>Every lifetime people have both good and bad stuff happen, friends getting killed in car wrecks or in a fire. There are wars, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, plane crashes, fights, shootings. Invading armies, bands of thugs, drouts, plagues, fights, people die...on and on the bad can go. But through out history there has also been happy stuff, people falling in love, marriages, babies being born, celebrations, festivals, great crops, adventures, people being saved, great acts of kindness and heroes saving the day.</p>

<p>Stuff like this has happened through history, but long ago, people on one side of the planet didn't hear about every bad thing on the other side of the planet. Now we do, more people, instant communications across the planet.</p>

<p>Add to that, our better understanding of science and space and TV shows that speculate a thousand ways our planet could be destroyed. Super diseases</p>

<p>It is little different today than back then. Don't dwell on the bad news cream rising to the surface from a lens looking only for the bad out of almost 7 billion people alive today.</p>

<p>We all have one life, we will experience joys and sorrow and one day each of us will die. It's part of the great cycle of life. Try to enjoy life to the fullest, look for the good things to celebrate, create your own good things and share with others to the best you can. That good stuff you make may only be ripples in the big pond but it spreads. If you make only one person smile today, you made the world a little better place for someone.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>If you make only one person smile today . . .</p>

</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh57sCPjtzw">Smile.</a></p>

[stephen_hipperson]

<p>Unfortunately, popular culture has now turned the smile into a status symbol.</p>

 

[tom_ziegler2]

<p>Agree Mark, Fred and Stephen. Fred, did you choose Judy Garland for a reason? Belting her heart out in "Smile" and yet having this heart wrenched with dispair in her life. Smile indeed is not only a status symbol, it doesn't even portray "Truth" as we discussed earlier. Perhaps it's our job to illustrate the yin-yang of life and let the viewer sort it out for her/himself.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Tom, I didn't choose it. It chose me. :-)</p>

<p>Seriously, though, yes. It's an amazing rendition and I chose it because negative/positive is not so black and white, maybe not the dichotomy we come to think it is. They often exist together in the same person/image/song/event. There's no fine line where Judy's smile ends and heartbreak begins, where her heartbreak can be transformed into song and bring smiles to us and where our smiles can force her heartbreak. Judy's singing Smile may be a kind of irony but it sure is, IMO, the portrayal of truth. For me, truth is different from accuracy, especially the truth of a photo or work of art. The words to Smile may not "represent" Judy's life literally, but she isn't making that kind of claim with the song. First of all she's singing it, so it's more than the lyrics, much more. She and the song are an embodiment of the emotions, a vessel. Every time I hear it, I hear truth, perhaps because of the conflicting emotional entanglements. My first reaction, honestly, to Mark's post was one of my usual skepticism. Sounded a little too "nice."* The song as sung by Garland seemed to give the idea of smiling depth (truth?), because it included not only sorrow but passion (which goes beyond negative or positive, sadness or happiness). I've also always found it a rather sappy song (so it struck me upon reading Mark's last paragraph), as many from that era are but, nevertheless, really powerful in her hands. Never mind whether the words to Smile are an accurate description of Judy's life. Her singing it is as real as it gets.</p>

<p>_____________________<br />*I'm not putting Mark down. <em>I'm</em> the darn skeptic.</p>

<p>Right after my mom died, a Rabbi spoke to me about saying Yizkor, the mourning prayer, several times a year. It is said by anyone whose lost an immediate family member at least four times a year, on holidays. One of the holidays is a celebratory holiday, not an austere or sad one. Why, then, say the mourning prayer on a day like that. Same reason, he said, that we break a wine glass at Jewish weddings by stomping on it in remembrance of the destruction of the temple. All joy is accompanied by sorrow. At the happiest occasions, we carry sorrowful and bittersweet memories of our loved ones and of life. It is part of the joy. It begs acknowledgment.</p>

[tom_ziegler2]

<p>Very well put, Fred. Not that it matters to the group, but I converted to Judaism back in 2008 and I believe it affects by perspective of photography. My mother (Roman Catholic) died in 2002, and I say Yizkor on the 22nd of Tevet (Dec. 27). OK, well I've slipped the past couple of years. <br>

Yes, we're both skeptics.</p>

 

[hjoseph7]

<p>There are allot of photographers/photojournalist out there that feel they need to make a statement, or "raise awarenes" to a certain ill in our society. You can look at life from that pespective, or you can take a much more positive attitude. Speaking for myself I rather take the positive attitude, life is just too short....</p>

[dan_south]

<p>If you photograph smiling faces, pretty flowers, and glowing sunsets, your peers will criticize you for taking meaningless "postcard" images. If you want to be taken seriously as a photographer you should only take dark, depressing images of broken objects and desperate or hideous people. </p>

<p>Remember, beauty is bad. Doom and gloom are good. And you get extra credit for obviously fake HDR. At least that's what I've learned in my time here at p.net. ;-)</p>

<p>Dammit, man! You have a CAMERA in your hands. If you want to see a different kind of picture, get out and TAKE some!</p>

<p>Ah, that was refreshing. I think I'll go photograph rats in the subway now. ;-)</p>

 

[_lvaro_rom_n]

<p>I had a similar thought years ago. My plan was to present no just the beauty of the world, but the fact that many people is doing things to change the world. So with some friends began to photograph volunteers and non-profit organizations activities. Recently we began to organise workshops to these organisations in order to recognise the value of photography and, enventually, they can be more prepared to take their own pictures.</p>

<p>I don't want to spam you, so you can find a link into my profile page. The good thing is that offer your time as a photographic volunteer (that's our concept: be involved as a person rather than as a photographer) opens doors to know a wide range of activities and approaches to make this world better ;)</p>